I have spent the last few weeks in California, watching the horror in Israel and the West Bank through the eyes of the American media. They are not as biased in favour of Sharon's Israel as most people in Europe think. From quality press and television you get a clear picture of what is being done to the Palestinians. And in some commentary too. "With its killings of women and children," wrote the Washington Post in a recent editorial, "its torture and terrorising of unarmed men and its mass destruction of the property and dignity of people in the West Bank, Sharon's army is also achieving the opposite of its aim." That's clear enough, isn't it?

However, one thing that American reporters and commentators do seem to agree on is that Europe is shamefully biased against Israel, for suspect reasons. A recent report by Steven Erlanger, the distinguished Berlin correspondent of the New York Times, began with the remark of a member of the Nobel Peace Prize committee, referring to the 1994 award of the prize to Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres: "I wish it were possible that we could recall the prize." No similar regrets were expressed, noted Erlanger, about having given the prize to Arafat.

"The remark," he went on, "is emblematic of European opinion on the escalating conflict in the Middle East. Sympathy for Arafat and the Palestinians, always strong, has grown stronger, while criticism of Ariel Sharon and Israel has grown more strident. Anti-semitic incidents are rising, especially in France, and with demonstrations scheduled in many European cities, there is anxiety about potential violence." The juxtaposition is startling: as if criticism of Sharon and anti-semitic incidents are somehow mild and extreme forms of the same European disease.

The Washington Post commentator Jim Hoagland, meanwhile, attributes European governments' critical attitudes to Israel to "dependence on Arab oil, guilt over colonialism and concern about large immigrant Muslim populations". I wonder what he would make of a European analysis of American attitudes to Israel which ended "and the influence of the Jewish lobby"? Would he say that was an example of European anti-semitism?

There is a real danger here of a downward spiral of transatlantic misunderstanding. I am not competent to disentangle the motives and interests on the American side. In any case, George Orwell teaches us that the most important thing is to be honest and self-critical about your own side. So, venturing into a minefield, let me make a few statements about European attitudes that seem to me broadly true.

1. There is huge sympathy in Europe for the Palestinians, as an oppressed and dispossessed people who should have their own state.

2. There is considerable scepticism about Arafat, who turned down his best chance of achieving that statehood in the "land-for-peace" deal negotiated by Bill Clinton. This is mitigated by sympathy with his present plight.

3. There is scant or no understanding for a Washington view of Israeli actions as part of the post-September 11 global "war against terrorism". The teenage suicide bombers of the Palestinian al-Aqsa brigades are regarded as politically and morally different from the suicide pilots of al-Qaida. President Bush's early policy of partisan disengagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is seen as more responsible for the present mess than anything done by Saddam Hussein or Syria.

4. The old pro-Arab sympathies of former colonial powers in Palestine and the Middle East do play a part in the attitudes of foreign policy elites, especially in Britain and France.

5. There is alarming evidence of revived anti-semitism on the extreme right, especially in France and parts of central and eastern Europe. For years now we have read of the desecration of Jewish graveyards. A few days ago a crowd attacked the central synagogue in Kiev. According to the chief rabbi, they were shouting: "Kill the Jews!" The connection with events in the Middle East is unclear; much of this began while Israelis and Palestinians still seemed to be heading for peace.

6. There is an even more virulent anti-semitism, which clearly is connected with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in parts of the Arab-Islamic (and especially Islamist) world. Through our Arab and Islamic populations, this kind of anti-semitism now has a small but violent physical presence in the streets and mosques of London, Paris and Berlin. Earlier this month two Jews in orthodox attire were assaulted on a Berlin street. German police said the attackers had "southern" features - a euphemism for darker-skinned people from the Middle East or north Africa.

7. There is a growing feeling that the EU should try to use its own diplomatic and economic muscle to persuade Israel to withdraw its tanks from Bethlehem and Ramallah, and come back to the negotiating table with Yasser Arafat, whether or not the US is prepared to do the same. Ann Clwyd, the Labour MP, recently wrote that the EU "should show its mettle and implement its own plan, regardless of the objections or intransigence of the United States".

8. Some Europeans, especially on the left, like this idea partly because it means Europe doing something different from, and even in conflict with, the Americans. They are not anti-semitic, just anti-American.

Of course such bold generalisations are perilous, in a place as diverse as Europe. But assuming them to be broadly true, what are the connections between them? I would say that 1 to 4 are closely and, so to speak, organically linked; 5 and 6 are largely separate, although fears of an Arab/Muslim backlash at home may be at the back of some European policymakers' minds. That leaves 7 and 8.

Of course Europe should speak its mind, but I believe it would be disastrous if Europe chose this issue on which to assert its independence. One reason is moral and historical. Europe used to be home to most of the world's Jews. Europeans murdered them or drove them out. Without Europe's holocaust there would probably be no state of Israel.

Even if today's native European or imported anti-semitism has nothing at all to do with our current Middle Eastern policy, that history should still dictate a basic humility in reading high moral lessons to Americans over Israel. It doesn't disqualify us, but it should restrain us.

The second reason is practical. Europe does not have a snowball's chance in hell of resolving the Middle East problem on its own. We should send our own strong message to Israel and the Palestinians; but to run off and start imposing our separate economic sanctions on Israel, as Ann Clwyd has urged, would be ridiculous. Any such measures could only be effective in tandem with the US, the patron state of Israel.

There are many places in the world where we can and should make a big difference by ourselves. In Bosnia. In Morocco. In putting the US on the spot over environmental protection or free trade or the establishment of the international criminal court. But Israel is not the place to start. Like it or not, here our main task is still to influence and complement American policy rather than making our own.